Peppermint?
by daughter-of-the-true-king
Summary: one-shot It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym. Again.


_A/N: Eustace/Jill are my favorite couple ever and--despite the many fics I've done on them in my head--this is the first one that ever made it past the "idea" stage. I'm really hungry for feedback, so please tell me what you think. Short, I know, but I have more one-shots (and maybe a multi-chaptered...if I can find the notebook that had the outline...) on their way to make up for it. :) Enjoy!_

It was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym. Again. She found herself thinking in irritation that it was extremely stupid--after all, when was the last time she'd done this? Three years ago? Yes, three years--because the last time she'd been in this situation, she had met Eustace and gone to Narnia. Narnia. Just thinking the name aroused so many memories, not to mention a wild hope that the next time she blinked she wouldn't see the faded shrubbery and muddy path, that instead she'd see Aslan, or Puddleglum, or...she wouldn't even have minded showing up in the Shallow Lands, not if it meant she was in Narnia again.

And that brought her back to the reason she was crying in the first place. _Stupid, stupid, stupid! _she berated herself. True, it had gotten increasingly rare for Them to bother anybody, but it had still been extremely stupid of her to let down her guard in front of Them for even that brief instant.

She thought wearily that it certainly hadn't taken much more than that instant for Them to realize how deep their stings would go with what They'd picked up in that moment. She bit her lip--hard--and almost gathered up the resolve to be calm and rational and stop blubbering; but, instead, she buried her head in her arms and sobbed dryly, almost out of tears.

Of course, Eustace had to choose this moment to walk around the corner of the gym (almost tripping over Pole in the process)--but he could be excused this blunder on the grounds that he always had been completely bereft of tact.

Jill scrambled to her feet, hastily running her arm over her eyes. "Can't you watch where you're going?" she said sharply, trying and failing to sound angry--instead of on the verge of more tears.

For a split second, Eustace looked extremely uncomfortable. Then, with an air of extreme patience, he sat down with his back to the gym wall and patted the ground beside him. "Enough of that, Pole, we've been through this before. What's up?" For a few seconds, Jill hesitated, looking indecisive. "Would you like a peppermint?" he added, smiling coaxingly; and, at the memory this familiar comment recalled, Jill uttered a wobbly laugh and sank down next to him.

"Yes, please," she said softly, taking the proffered candy and popping it into her mouth. They shared a few minutes of companionable silence, both thinking about the last time they'd been sitting behind the gym, sucking on peppermints, and what it had led to...

Eustace shook himself out of yester-year, remembering that this was the here-and-now, and Pole shouldn't have been crying, not when Experiment House had been reformed into a pretty tolerable place. "So..." he said, prodding gently. "Surely not Them?"

She nodded miserably. "You know They haven't really changed much--just Their tactics. Now they're more secretive, and don't go into anything that would leave visible marks... Just--little--things." Her voice cracked and she stopped, averting her eyes with embarrassment as she recalled the subject of their horrid teasing--and Scrubb was a _boy_--she couldn't tell him, let alone expect him to understand.

Eustace observed this sudden change in his friend, as she ducked her head and her cheeks reddened. Somehow, with one of those rare moments of insight that are occasionally granted to the male species, he said, "It was about your looks, wasn't it?" This was a rather blundering way to go into the tender subject--and Eustace himself was growing more uncomfortable by the minute, but Jill--_Pole_--was his friend, and he couldn't just sit there and let her cry.

Her startled face came up and Pole's eyes blinked into his, momentarily harboring a sudden panic, before dropping again. He barely heard the mumbled assent. Eustace suddenly felt himself growing hot in the face. He was not afraid of talking about Jill's looks--not at all--how dare he even think it!

"Well, it shouldn't bother you, Pole really." Jill looked back up, eyes flashing disagreement, he could tell she was about to protest; he decided to go on and get it over with as quickly as possible. No sense in being lazy about it. He would just state the facts and leave her to her own thoughts--after making sure she was not going to keep blubbing. "I mean, They must not have any eyes in Their heads--blind as bats--because...you are really--beautiful--Jill." That last part came out in a sudden rush and at the blank astonishment on his _friend's_ face he grew even hotter around the collar. He bolted to his feet, mumbling something incoherent about a math prep to finish, and walked away as quickly as he could without looking like he was running...which would (of course) be completely ridiculous.

Jill sat behind the gym for a long time after that, but tears were the farthest thing from her mind.


End file.
